


butterflies out the bathroom window

by Fiction_Over_Fact



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Getting Together, M/M, Madara and Tobirama do NOT actually get married in this fic, Matchmaking, though Hashirama does have plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 06:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15790416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiction_Over_Fact/pseuds/Fiction_Over_Fact
Summary: “And I said that I didn’t want you two to be lonely your whole lives so I told you-“A leaden weight begins to form in Tobirama’s stomach, because yes, now he remembers.Fireflies over the lake, cool water lapping around his ankles, brain just the right side of fuzzy. Madara’s warm weight pressed to his side as they lean against each other. The summertime air falling over their shoulders like a blanket. There’s an old rock song playing in the background, slow and sweet. And Hashirama. Hashirama—shirtless and sunburned, drunk off his ass—declaring“-that if you were both single when you were thirty I would make you marry each other?” Hashirama rubs at the back of his head, laughing a little sheepishly.





	butterflies out the bathroom window

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed, title is from:  
> "I miss dating The excitement of meeting someone new, that feeling of butterflies when you see if you can climb out their bathroom window..."  
> \- MF FairyPrincessSmoo @Smooheed  
> This is also in general inspired by those prompts you often see about "we promised that if neither of us were married by (AGE) then we'd marry each other." 
> 
> Except neither Tobirama nor Madara are really the type. 
> 
> Hashirama though? Probably.
> 
>  **EDIT: 8-25-18** it's mostly unchanged, a few lines added, few taken away and I fixed the grammar errors that I saw.

“You do realize that this is kidnapping?” Tobirama asks, with a great deal more apathy than he feels.

He’s tired, hungry and the collar of his button-up has been irritating the back of his neck all day. His forearm, unreachable through his cast,  _itches._ All he’d wanted once his office hours ended was to go  _home,_ where there were no frantic freshmen and slacking seniors asking him about due dates.

_Bliss._

Instead, he’s being carted across the city by a pair of idiots.

“That’s not true! I picked you up from work.” His older brother whines from behind the wheel, waving a hand in the air above the console. “You were willing and everything!”

Izuna reaches out from the passenger seat, grabbing the wildly flopping limb and pressing it firmly back to the steering wheel.

“Sorry Izuna.” Hashirama apologizes, sounding sheepish. His hand wraps firmly around the wheel but one finger immediately begins to tap.

Izuna hums noncommittally.

Tobirama glances between the back of Hashirama’s seat and Izuna, disgruntled.

“ _He_ gets the apology?”

Hashirama doesn’t answer, instead reaching out to turn up the radio another few clicks. The bright, peppy beat blares louder, throbbing in time with Tobirama’s headache. He barely resists groaning aloud.

The music grates, but not as much as Izuna’s snickering.

They mostly get along these days, but it’s always hard to remember that when the man snickers the same way he did when they were kids. Every time it brings Tobirama right back to holding him in a headlock after the little bastard threw a sandwich on his book during lunch.

He glares at Izuna through the rearview mirror, Hashirama protected from retaliation for his comments only by the fact that he was driving.

Izuna just shrugs when he notices Tobirama looking at him, cheeks lightly flushed and already out of his uniform for the day. There’s a fading bruise around his left eye.

Tobirama is envious of whoever punched him.

“He’s not wrong, you  _did_ come willingly,” he says, like that somehow makes this entire whatever-this-is okay. Which, no, Tobirama does  _not_  agree.

“Under false pretenses,” he points out.

Hashirama had promised him a ride home from campus and, foolish and desperate to skip the long bus route, he’d believed him. A mistake he will  _not_  be making in the future, puppy dog eyes be damned.

Izuna shrugs again. “Eh.”

Tobirama leans back into the headrest, pleading briefly with the fuzzy gray upholstery on the ceiling for mercy since no one else in the car is going to give him any.

“ _You are a police officer_ ,” he says, slowly, carefully enunciating each syllable. Izuna seems to have forgotten his career path. “You’re supposed to uphold the law.”

“Detective,” he corrects, so quick it must be an instinctive response. And then, “eh.”

Tobirama grits his teeth, quietly seething.

He’ll have to kill Hashirama first, he decides.

Madara would toss him in prison for killing Izuna too fast for him to do it the other way around. Also, he should warn Kawarama and Itama beforehand, so they can get a head start on the eulogy. Hashirama is very difficult to explain, after all.

A phone vibrates at the front of the car, rattling in the cup holder and distracting Tobirama from his new murder plans.

“Hello!” Izuna answers, smile visible in his voice. Which means it must be—

Izuna reaches back and holds his cell out before he can finish the thought. “Here, Touka wants to talk to you for a sec.”

Tobirama takes the phone, sneering at Izuna and then shifting to look out the window. He spares a brief glance down at the screen but no, it’s locked outside of the call.

“Tobi!” His sometimes-favorite cousin cheers at him before he can speak. There’s chatter in the background of her call and a little interference from the wind. “I was hoping to talk to you.”

“By calling your husband?” Tobirama growls, immediately suspicious. His phone is working perfectly (though in Hashirama’s pocket) and he doesn’t see Izuna  _that_  often. She’s in on this.

He sighs. “…Touka, what’s going on?”

She laughs at him. “You’ll have to let your brother explain that one, I’m not getting my head bit off because you’re impatient.”

“Hashirama wouldn’t do that.” He’d apparently been wrong about Hashirama not being a kidnapper but his good-tempered nature is, at least, still a fundamental truth in the universe.

“No,  _you_  would though.”

Tobirama pauses, glancing up to the front of the car. Hashirama’s head is visibly bobbing along to the music over the headrest. Izuna is picking at his nails.

“I’m going to hate whatever this is,” he says. It’s not a question.

Touka laughs even louder, her amusement taking on a slightly vicious edge. “Oh, the idea of it?  _Definitely_.” She damn near  _purrs_ , which means nothing good.

Tobirama huffs out a deep breath, not so much a sigh as a display of his annoyance with and stress over this situation.

He’s too tired for whatever is happening to him.

“Hey.” Touka says, as gently as she ever manages.

He grunts, eyes locked on the colorful blurs of passing cars. They’ve left the center of the city now, or at least the area around the university, but he can’t tell where Hashirama is going yet.

“It’ll be good for you, don’t worry so much Tobes.” She continues. “At least listen to Hashirama?”

Normally assurances like that got on his nerves immediately—they had when he was a child and Butsuma was trying to plan out his life, and they still did whenever Hashirama dragged him to brunch with several strangers.

“ _It’ll be good for you”_ s be damned, it had never been true.

Touka, at least, understands him better than his father or older brother; she  _might_  genuinely know what could be good for him.

“… _Fine_.”

 “Alright! Enough of this squishy shit then?”

“Please.” He says, not bothering to hide the relief in his voice.

He’d rather have his teeth ripped out than talk about his “feelings” at the best of times. And this? This is the end of a workday-tired-itchy-hungry displeasure. Not the best of times.

Touka really does understand him better than anyone but Itama.

“Alright, I did actually want to talk to you and I don’t know if I’ll get the chance later today so-“

Izuna interrupts before she can finish, waving one of his hands in front of Tobirama’s face to get his attention.

“Can I have my wife back?” He asks, apparently loud enough that Touka can hear it through the phone because she snorts.

“Tell my husband to fuck off.” The words are aggressive but the tone is fond, which fits with every interaction Tobirama has seen between them.

Tobirama looks up at Izuna’s expectant face, and then disdainfully down at his already outstretched hand.

“She says to fuck off.”

Izuna pouts but doesn’t look surprised. He slumps back into his seat with an air of immaturity he should have outgrown several gunshot wounds and a mortgage ago.

Tobirama gets to talk with Touka for a few minutes (apparently her regular trainer at the gym was on maternity leave and her new one was…annoying, if you were being kind. Touka was not.) before Hashirama clears his throat.

Tobirama ignores him.

Hashirama clears his throat several more times, each escalating in volume and force. After a few repeats it’s loud enough for Touka to hear it and she sighs. Tobirama can’t  _see_ her shaking her head, but the part of him that’s seen Touka almost every week for thirty years can  _sense_  it.

“I suppose I’ll let him talk to you before he manages to kill himself.” She says, exasperated and amused, her typical emotional response to Hashirama’s shenanigans.

Tobirama gives Izuna his phone back reluctantly and watches, amused, as he eagerly puts it to his ear only to drop it melodramatically when he finds out she’s already hung up.

Hashirama seizes the opportunity to finally speak.

“So!” He begins, several decibels too loud, gradually quieting as he speaks. His words, however, only get faster.

“You remember when you were in college and your girlfriend—the one that played the guitar—cheated on you with that famous skier? And then you went out with that guy that spilled coffee on you three times, but then he tried to fistfight Touka at dinner so you had to go to the hospital to break up with him? And we all went to the lake for the weekend because Madara had just been through all those bad blind dates Izuna set him up on?”

Tobirama blinks, trying to process that verbal barrage. Hashirama’s lung capacity is more impressive than he’d thought.

“Hey!” Izuna interrupts before he can figure out how to respond. “They were all fine, that was  _not_  my fault!”

 _That,_ at least, he understands immediately. He stares at Izuna, disbelieving. “They weren’t  _fine._ Two of them had felonies.”

“People can change!” Izuna defends, crossing his arms over his chest.

“They’re both in prison  _right now_. One of them walked out on him and tried to steal his car! He had to arrest her!” He remembers that one particularly well. Madara tells it every year during Izuna’s birthday party.

“Okay, we’re here!” Hashirama announces, ignoring their argument entirely and rolling the car to a gentle stop.

Tobirama throws a quick glance out the window—it’s just Madara’s house, nothing worrisome—and turns to look back to the front of the car but.

Wait.

“…Why are we at Madara’s house?” He asks, glancing between Hashirama and Izuna, struck by sudden paranoia.

They usually have holiday parties at Madara’s, since he has the nicest backyard and enough chairs to fit all of them around a table at once. There haven’t been any holidays recently though. Unless you counted…

“This isn’t a surprise party for my birthday.” He demands, frowning. He doesn’t mind celebrating his birthday but surprise parties are far too much of a fuss for his taste, and the expectation of some performative reaction on his part is grating.

After several unfortunate attempts, Hashirama had  _supposedly_  learned his lesson a few years ago. It wouldn’t be the first time Hashirama had “forgotten” something like that.

“No,” said brother responds, far too quickly.

Suspicious.

“Okay, you remember what I was saying about the lake and Madara’s bad blind dates”—Izuna snorts and rolls his eyes but doesn’t interrupt—“and your guitar playing girlfriend with the skier…?” He trials off, turning in his seat to meet Tobirama’s eyes, like he genuinely thinks he might need more clarification.

“Yes Anija, I haven’t had  _that many_  girlfriends leave me for Olympians,” he says, as dryly as is physically possible. It’s what Hashirama deserves for whatever he’s up to.

Hashirama pouts at him before continuing. “But we went to the lake that weekend and we were out late drinking on the dock, talking about your and Madara’s inability to have relationships.” He pauses there, mouth closed and eyes expectant, like he thinks Tobirama will interrupt.

He doesn’t though, just nods—the statement is neither particularly offensive to him nor inaccurate. He does wonder, however, what the point is. Hashirama usually doesn’t like to bring up the various failures of his relationships, it tends to depress him (Hashirama that is).

“And I said that I didn’t want you two to be lonely your whole lives so I told you-“

A leaden weight begins to form in Tobirama’s stomach, because yes,  _now_  he remembers.

_Fireflies over the lake, cool water lapping around his ankles, brain just the right side of fuzzy. Madara’s warm weight pressed to his side as they lean against each other. The summertime air falling over their shoulders like a blanket. There’s an old rock song playing in the background, slow and sweet. And Hashirama. Hashirama—shirtless and sunburned, drunk off his ass—declaring_

“-that if you were both single when you were thirty I would make you marry each other?” Hashirama rubs at the back of his head then, laughing a little sheepishly.

His brother’s words only make the heavy ball of dread worse, but a small part of him is glad for the interruption, glad that it cut off the last part of the memory, the moment he’s been trying to forget for all these years, minus the first day.

“And I’m not gonna do that! But, you turned thirty a few days ago and neither of you have been on a date in months, so I thought one wouldn’t hurt…,” his voice trials off, and he shrugs a little, apologetic but not enough to stop this.

Tobirama eyes the doors on either side of him.

Locked.

He sighs.

Izuna is already smirking at him when he looks back up, eyes glinting with an unholy joy.

“I’m not going in.” He states, voice like bedrock.

 

He goes in.

It’s not really a fair fight to begin with—Tobirama might spend a few mornings a week at the gym with Touka but Hashirama has always been unnecessarily large and strong. Izuna, for all the stereotypes about cops, isn’t any easier to struggle against. Add to that his broken arm…Well, suffice to say that he’s quickly dragged kicking (but not screaming) out of the car and up to Madara’s porch.

“And you said this wasn’t kidnapping.” He accuses, grunting when Hashirama lifts him into the air instead of forcing him up the steps. Stupid, giant brother.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, pushes him flat to the edge of the door, barely missing Madara’s doorbell.

It’s uncomfortable for many reasons, chief among them being Izuna’s wrist pressed to his stomach as reaches out to unlock the door. Tobirama can feel the muscles in his arm tense as he braces himself.

There’s no verbal countdown but, as one, Izuna quickly swings the door open just wide enough for Hashirama to push him through it.

The door closes with a clatter and the click of the lock and, if one had been listening carefully, they would have heard porch furniture being pushed around to block it.

Tobirama, who’d landed against something warm and vaguely spicy smelling instead of the linoleum of the entry way, was not listening carefully.

His cushion groans in exasperation, before it grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him back to his feet.

“Fucking hell, I didn’t think they’d already have you.” Madara grumbles, stepping past him to look through the window near the top of the door and, presumably, glare at their brothers.

He bangs on it a few times, hard enough that it shakes a little, before he gives up, turning to face Tobirama and leaning back against the door.

He glares accusingly. “You couldn’t give them more of a fight?” he demands, like Tobirama had somehow let him down by not being able to fight off both of their brothers at once.

Tobirama looks slowly between his cast and Madara several times. He apparently gets the message because he flushes, shoulders drawing up as he crosses his arms.

“ _Fine_.” He relents, like someone had offered him a large sum of money to be hit in the head with a shovel.

Tobirama rolls his eyes. “I don’t exactly expect my brother to kidnap me when he offers me a ride home.”

Madara looks at him like that’s genuinely surprising.

“Why not?”

Tobirama gives him the stink eye, because if Hashirama and Izuna worked together on this it’s obvious whose idea it was.

“Well,” he drawls, “I’m not the one related to Izuna.”

Madara opens his mouth, brows scrunching up like he’s gearing up for an argument before it visibly fizzles, the fight seeping right out of him.

Izuna’s nature as a troublemaker and little shit is inarguable, even for someone as contrary as his older brother.

“Would you be willing to trade me a brother?” He asks instead, throwing another glare at the door.

Tobirama snorts, shaking his head. Madara had asked him this several times before.

They did once  _actually_  trade back in college, Madara taking Hashirama home and him taking Izuna. Despite what everyone had anticipated, Tobirama didn’t cave first. (This was more because Madara had barged into his apartment at 3 A.M., hand fisted in Hashirama’s hair—several hours before Tobirama had planned to wake up and exchange Izuna for a more familiar brand of chaos—than because Tobirama had dealt with Izuna better than Madara had Hashirama.)

“Which one would you like?” He asks and, as Madara starts to speak, continues with, “Only Kawarama or Hashirama though. Itama isn’t an option.”

Madara doesn’t quite pout but it’s a near thing. He gives up the subject, instead gesturing for Tobirama to follow him.

Madara leads him into the kitchen—Tobirama can see light flickering in the dining room when they walk past and intentionally avoids investigating further—and over to the glass door leading to the backyard. He pushes the curtain out of the way and points, wordlessly.

One of the wrought iron tables they have dinner around has been taken out of the shed and set up across the deck, the fairy lights Hashirama gave Madara last year glimmering above the heads of four people who definitely do not belong in Madara’s yard.

Touka waves at them from the table, slapping at Hikaku’s shoulder from where he’s bent over, head resting on his arms. Mito and Itama turn, waving wryly and cheerfully, respectively.

Madara growls, flipping them off. “They’ve been out there for two hours. They barricaded the garage door from the inside and, even if we  _could_  get in there, the driveway is blocked. Izuna and your other brothers are all in the front yard.”

Tobirama glares at his cousin, betrayed, before Madara lets the curtain fall back into place.

He stomps into the dining room, grumbling all the way. Tobirama looks at his faint reflection in the glass for a long moment before reluctantly following him.

He stops sharply at the threshold, his throat suddenly painfully dry as he takes in the scene before him.

Madara sits at the dining room table across from a mostly melted candle. There are two covered platters of food in place and a few orchids in a vase. They’re his favorite shade of blue, cat safe in case Eba gets onto the table and no doubt Hashirama’s idea.

Madara starts to pull the lid off one plate but then shakes his head, walking past Tobirama back into the kitchen to shuffle through one of the cabinets, grousing loudly as he went.

“Your idiot brother—the older one, not Kawarama—conned me into cooking dinner earlier, said Mito had a craving for…what?” He stops talking when leans back out of the cabinet, a glass in each hand. He looks surprised that Tobirama is still standing there, like he actually expected him to just go and sit at the table for their _date_.

 “You’re just accepting this?” Tobirama asks, disbelieving.

He’d seen Madara argue with Hashirama while  _sleep-talking_  once. The idea of this man, the most contrary person he’s ever met, just… _taking_ something like this is hard to imagine even now, while it’s happening in front of his face.

“I thought we could just…go with it?” Madara says, voice gradually losing certainty as he speaks.

Tobirama looks at Madara, aghast. All those years of screaming, spitting and flailing and he’s willing to be forced into a date?

 _And_ , a quiet corner of his brain adds,  _all those years of us both carefully avoiding even being alone together?_

Apparently seeing his shock, Madara shrugs. “If we don’t Hashirama will complain about it for the rest of both of our lives.”

Tobirama can’t stop himself from wincing. “The rest of  _either_  of our lives,” he corrects. “If one of us dies before either of us get into a serious relationship he’ll never get over our  _lost chance_  and  _tragic romance_.” He sneers as he says the examples, the words tasting overly sweet on his tongue. He can already picture Hashirama’s dramatic blubbering.

Tobirama looks back to Madara, only to find the man scrunching his nose up oddly, staring into the middle distance. His cheeks are a bit flushed and, when he sees Tobirama looking at him, they darken even more.

“Would it be that bad?” Madara asks before Tobirama can question him about what’s wrong. Or, more likely, gently mock him until he cracks, as is their custom.

“…What?” He responds, the word half catching in his throat.

Madara isn’t saying that to him. Izuna and Hashirama must have banged his head into something when they were forcing him into the house. This is just a particularly strange symptom of a concussion.

“If we…tried this.” He waves his hand over the table and its contents and then, more hesitantly, from his chest to Tobirama.

‘ _If we tried us_ ,’ he doesn’t say, but the meaning is clear enough.

 _Are we really having this conversation_ , Tobirama wonders. He can feel his entire body tense in indignation—muscles going stiff, fist clenching, teeth a hair away from grinding.

Because there is a reason, one that Hashirama and Izuna had so handily ignored while locking Madara in his house and kidnapping Tobirama from his work place. A reason that they’ve avoided being alone together for most of a decade now. Well,  _he’s_  been avoiding being alone with Madara, anyway. He can’t be sure if the other man is also doing it intentionally but, if he wasn’t, surely this would have happened before?

…maybe not exactly this situation, true, but the two of them by themselves in the same room.

Madara, more perceptive of his moods than most (or simply more attuned to the signs of growing anger based on his own temper), bites off his next words. He stares at Tobirama for a long moment, watching him with a blank expression and eyes that might be a little hurt, like he has any right to the feeling.

 _He’s still blushing_ , Tobirama notices, the thought distant and muted like he was underwater.

Madara’s voice has no trace of that bashfulness in it when he next speaks.

“It bothers you that much? The idea of us having a relationship?” He growls, eyes hot with his own kindling rage.

And  _that_ is what makes him snap, the idea that Madara somehow thinks he can be justified in his anger about  _them_.

“You want there to be an  _us_?” he spits, acid dripping off the last word.

Madara visibly bristles, setting the glasses down with a loud clatter. He moves out of the kitchen and closer to Tobirama, sneer growing with every step.

“Not with you acting like it’s a death sentence,” he growls, glaring.

“I’m  _acting_  like you had your chance and threw it away. Why should I trust that you want this now?” He shoots back, stepping into Madara’s space, refusing to back down.

Madara barks out a laugh, the noise empty of any amusement.

“What the hell are you even talking about?”

“I’m talking about you being too much of a coward to even tell me you changed your mind!”

“What the fuck—” Madara starts to say, voice inching closer to a scream before he’s interrupted by a small, chirping call as a furry black blur bolts into the room.

“ _Mrrow_!”

Tobirama blinks, looking down at the floor. The room suddenly feels bigger than it had before, like there’s more air to breathe and it’s less hot, all the tension sapped out.

Madara might be an idiot with terrible timing but he’d accepted that years ago. He can deal with it for a few more hours till Hashirama lets him go home.

Said idiot scoops Eba off the floor after several more loud chirps and suddenly there’s a furry face headbutting his nose. It tickles enough that he can’t help but laugh a little, reaching out to scratch behind her behind one pointy ear.

He tries not to look at Madara’s face, not wanting to restart the argument with the man’s cat between them, but when he speaks again, voice calmer than it’s been the entire evening, Tobirama can’t help but look.

“I don’t…why do,” he starts before sighing and closing his eyes for a moment. He looks frustrated, but with himself this time, instead of Tobirama or their brothers.

When Madara opens his eyes again he looks directly at Tobirama, mouth half obscured by Eba’s long black fur.

“Why?” He asks, seeming genuinely curious. “We like each other well enough, you find me attractive…why do you hate the idea so much?”

Tobirama purses his lips, half-tempted to glare but too tired for it—it had been a long day even before he got kidnapped by his own brother, and every minute he’s been in Madara’s house this evening has dragged on like an hour. With their earlier fight stopped before it could really begin he feels almost listless, the flicker of temper having drained the rest of his energy.

Plus, face half buried in his cat, Madara looks so ridiculous he can’t help but answer.

“Hashirama told you why he did this?” He asks, waiting for Madara’s nod—the man is blushing again, presumably at the idea that his best friend is a few drinks and a priest away from marrying them at any given time.

He looks away from his face, choosing to focus on Eba’s closed eyes and rumbling purr, moving his hand to scratch under her chin.

“You remember how we stayed out late after Hashirama exhausted himself ‘planning our wedding?’”

Again, Madara nods. They’re standing so close Tobirama feels him move more than he sees it. His response is slower this time, like he’s confused about why Tobirama brought it up.

“Then you kissed me and avoided me the entire day after. Remember how you never mentioned it again?” He asks, wryly. It’s a lot easier to not be angry about it now than it was before, Eba apparently better at creating the emotional distance needed to discuss it than seven years of ignoring the memory had been.

It’s quiet for a while, long enough that he’d almost doubt that Madara was still in the room with him if not for Eba’s face in his hands and the lack of footsteps.

And then Madara groans, stepping to the side and leaning down so Eba can hop lightly to the run. Once his hands are free he immediately rubs at his eyes, hunching forward like he suddenly can’t bear to support his weight.

“ _That’s_ why you kept trying to talk to me,” he mutters, not looking up from the floor.

Tobirama looks at him, something next to his stomach flipping oddly. Madara sounds like that’s a revelation, like he’s surprised. And that’s…that’s something Tobirama hadn’t considered.

"Why were you avoiding me in the first place?" He asks, tone less accusing than it would have been only a few minutes ago.

Madara shakes his head vigorously. "You were  _shirtless_ the rest of the weekend. You kept  _touching_  me." He makes it sound like a particularly vile crime, even as his voice quivers slightly. Apparently, the idea of Tobirama shirtless wasn't bad.

That Madara had just  _forgotten_  had never occurred to him.

The laugh that forces its way out of his throat catches him by surprise, though not as much as Madara who jolts up and stares for a beat before looking at him like he’s lost his mind.

It’s just that it’s such a ridiculous situation, and certainly not the kind of thing that happened to people like them—men who’d acted like crotchety seniors most of their lives. Madara, however, doesn’t seem to see the humor in it.

“I just found out that I managed to fuck up a relationship I  _wasn’t even in_! Why are you laughing?” He hisses. He does actually look distraught—eyes a shade too wide for an emotionally stable person, so Tobirama shakes his head, composing himself.

He ushers Madara into one of the places at the table, settling into the other.

The candle has melted down to nothing by now and the food is probably cold but it doesn’t matter, not really. He’s been waiting for this moment for far longer than a romantic dinner or a good meal.

The dessert in the oven is still good later and the company is even better.

Both more than worth the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> *Eba, Madara’s cat, is supposedly named ember/spark/flash or something along those lines. (I don’t like using Japanese words when I can't be 100% sure of the meaning but it felt weirder to give him a cat with an English name so *shrug*)
> 
> *Careers, if you're curious: Tobirama is a college professor (couldn't decide what subject); Izuna and Madara are both detectives on the police force (I think Madara might quit and be a professional cook though); Hashirama is either the owner of a very successful chain of flower shops or a botanist (both? both is good); Mito is in philology, specializing in code-breaking so she's probably cracking Linear A or something.  
> Touka, you may ask? Touka is a professional MMA fighter.
> 
> I was actually pretty happy with this fic until I got to the end. I'm very bad with sap/love/emotions in general and neither of these guys really have personalities that go well with it in this context (at least in my hands) so I cut it short rather than make bigger mess.
> 
> I hesitated to post this at all just because of the end, but I already mentioned this fic to someone so I was kind of obligated to finish it. Plus, I do like parts of it! So it felt like a shame to scrap the entire thing. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated and feel free to poke me if you spot any errors.


End file.
